Quite Contrary
by a.bolina
Summary: [One-Shot] Luna Lovegood always turns her homework in for Professor Lupin, on time even.


Quite Contrary

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Summary: Luna Lovegood always turns her homework in for Professor Lupin, on time even.

Claimer: I claim plot, conversation bits, and that JKR makes mighty great characters, nothing else.

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She is a surprise really. He never knows what he should expect from her. He supposes that is why he likes her. Things are orchestrated to perfection. The sun rises and falls everyday, and the months come and go, and the moon waxes and wanes. People even become the same after some time. Routine is easier than spontaneity, and it gets the better of everyone at some time or another, everyone except her.

She comes and goes as she pleases. She smiles when she wants, and it's rarely when a smile is expected. She frowns when she wants, and that is all together uncommon.

The other teachers complain about her. _"Never turns her homework in one time, that one,"_ Minerva will say, _"It's always either too early or too late."_

__

"Always has her head in the clouds, can't even concentrate on the simplest of potions," Severus will add.

He never really has anything to complain about. She always turns her homework in for him. On time as well. She always concentrates too.

"Professor McGonagall was complaining about you again," he teases her when she walks in, placing her bag at one of the desks. She looks up and smiles, but doesn't say anything. Many students would have frowned in her place.

As is usual, he fills up the silence until she comes up with some theory she'd like to test on him. "She says you never turn your work in quite on time. I of course, had to sit there embarrassed because you always turn your homework in on time for me."

She pulls a book out of her bag and sits in the empty chair behind his desk. Such impertinence...

"I like you more than her," she says frankly. "_She_ can't even remember my _name_." He steps away from his bookcase and take a seat at one of the student desks. His desk is occupied.

"She refers to you as 'That Lovegood Girl.' Seems to me she remembers your name," he says, referencing the book he retrieved against the notes on the lecture he plans to give to his seventh year students.

She leans back in his chair, causing it to creak violently. "You know what I mean. My _real_ name. My first name." He looks up for a moment and smiles at her.

"I do believe I spoil my students. Just because I refer to you all by your first names," she smirks at the "you all" bit, "Doesn't mean that all teachers feel comfortable doing so."

She considers this and leans back farther in his chair. Covertly, he casts a spell to prevent it from falling over backwards. His efforts were apparently unnecessary as she plants all five legs of the chair firmly on the ground and gets up anyway. He finds himself nearly holding his breath as she sits down next to him and peers over his shoulder. He puts the finishing touches on the notes and sits back, waiting for her approval.

She finishes reading it and looks up at him smiling. "Sound's fascinating. I very nearly wish I were a seventh year, Professor." He smiles back, chuckling just a bit, and stands, shuffling his papers together.

"But there is one thing." He stops and looks at her. "You didn't mention how they die."

"Dementors don't die," he states, but it comes out very nearly like a question. She shakes her head slightly, grinning at him as though he were a child whom she had to explain everything to.

"How do you know?" she asks first. He racks his brain but cannot come up with a title of a book, or a name of a person that claimed dementors are immortal. Still, he ventures to answer.

"You've never heard of a dementor dying, have you?" he asks, attempting to mimic her air of the patient teacher. He always can with everyone else, but, with her, he feels closer to the questioning student.

"Things die all the time. It's not unusual for something to die. What _is _unusual is for something to live. Death is common. Immortality is not. We would be more likely to be told directly if dementors were immortal than if they died, just like most everything else," she argues back. He is still not convinced.

"But there is no way to kill a dementor. Something cannot be mortal if there is no way to kill it."

She laughs and says, "They used to think that about dratorbluffers, and just look what happened to them!" He supposes he managed to look thoroughly confused, because she laughs again and begins digging around in her bag. Looking triumphant, she pulls out the latest issue of the Quibbler and places it gently in his hands before standing, waving good-bye and turning to walk out of the room. He stops her, just for a moment.

"If a dementor _does_, die, what happens to the souls it's sucked?" She turns towards him and smiles, rather sadly.

"They're finally put to rest." She turns again, and he stops her once more.

"What about the souls that deserved their fate?"

She smiles even more sadly now. "Do you really think anyone deserves that?" She leaves him then. She comes and goes as she pleases, so unlike her namesake. _Luna_. If anyone were to ever kill a dementor, it would be her.

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A/N:

After seeing _The Prisoner of Azkaban_, I was struck by how close Lupin seemed to be to Harry, and I got to thinking maybe he was close to other student as well.

Luna's little spiel about no one deserving that fate, I imagine now, is where Lupin gets that idea, which he applies in the conversation where Harry asks about what's under a dementor's hood.

Review? It'll make my day.


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